Kill, kill, kill in the name of peace, kill the children, kill them all

'Birds of a feather warmonger together' sez Wag

The recent attacks on Gaza by the Israeli state have brought some strange bedfellows out of the Irish woodwork, marching together in lock-step. Almost to a man, and woman, those who were vitriolic in opposition to the Irish Peace Process have been four-square behind the slaughter in Gaza. Eoghan Harris, Kevin Myers, Tom Carew, and Ruth Dudley Edwards - please take a bow.

For Edwards, Myers, Harris and Carew - Sinn Féin equals Hamas (or previously, Sinn Féin equals PLO, when the PLO were the international right’s bad guys) . It is good copy for right wing politics. Unfortunately for the Gaza warmongers, ignorance of strange sounding foreigners in far away places has been replaced by pictures of slaughter in every living room in the country. We can see who is suffering and who is killing. Israel’s Irish friends would like us to focus on Hamas rockets, the ones Hamas started firing again when Israel deliberately broke a ceasefire that was working, in order to provoke the rocket firing, in order to provoke an excuse for the slaughter. It’s not rocket science.

Below is a short but sharp report on the recent role they played in support of the Israeli Defence Forces, and how that role relates to their Irish politics.

Ruth Dudley Edwards – Sunday Independent
Edwards' recent article headlined “Brave Israel has every right to bomb Hamas” (see article image) stated, “when will we get it into our collective thick heads that our own rather simple tribal problem on this island has little relevance to those in far away countries of which we know little.” But RDE’s Gaza gaze is relevant to us, and might lead to wonder among the relatives of the slaughtered (“those far away”): why does she hate us so, why are our deaths of such little consequence to this little Irelander ideologue? To which we can only reply, don’t blame us, she is in fact a little Englander (author of an official history of the British Foreign Office and of one favourable to the sectarian Orange Order). To paraphrase Standish O’Grady, she is mad and living in London. Being either is not a condition of each, but it seems to suit her.

Kevin Myers Israel supporter: poster boy for racist, fascist British National Party
“The racist, fascist, anti-Semitic British National Party have come out in support of the 'Anglo-Irish' Kevin Myers - who has been writing increasingly aggressive articles targeting non-white immigrants to Ireland.
The supporter of the GDI (Greatest Dead Irishman), Conor Cruise O'Brien - scourge of Irish republicans and Palestinians alike - has got into trouble with the Irish Press Council before. Have they the guts to take him on again? What are the consequences for inciting hatred and being associated with fascists - there are none for writing right-wing gibberish.

Supporter of Zionism, supported by fascists – some ‘achievement’ for the Conor Cruise O’Brien supporter.”

Speaking of CCOB (might as well), he started the trend among Irish anti-republicans of supporting Israeli Zionism. David Astor of the Observer asked O’Brien if he intended interviewing then PLO President Yasser Arafat for his book on Israel, ‘The Siege’ (1986). "No" he said and was asked why, “I don’t want to”. Christopher Hitchens pointed out that the book’s lengthy acknowledgements did not contain a single Arab name. The Arabs were censored, like Conor Cruise O’Brien censored republicans in Ireland. Non people, like the dead in Gaza.

Eoghan Harrris – Sunday Independent
The zeal of the convert. Once a staunch republican, he wore a trench coat habitually in 1960s Cork. He also mimicked what he thought was the oratorical style of Patrick Pearse – once, much (much) later, he delivered a speech “in the manner of a fascist” (it suited his style). Harris became a disciple of Conor Cruise O’Brien. CCOB was “always right” said Harris. That means Harris was wrong, when Harris was member of the “Official” Republican movement and O'Brien was attacking them. Harris wrote recently about media coverage (he often does, thinks he is an expert) of the Israeli Gaza onslaught. He wrote of, “alleged atrocities featuring the corpses of little children, shorn of any subtext seeking to ask if Hamas bears any responsibility for these little bodies.” Let us think about the front and back of that sentence. If the featured corpses, the “little bodies” shorn of their limbs, skin and internal organs, are “alleged”, indicating difficulty accepting their reality, how does Hamas bear responsibility for them? But of course it is Israeli responsibility, that of the killers, that is merely alleged, whereas that of Hamas is real in the wilderness that is Harris World. Neat, eh. Disingenuous too. But that is Harris-speak – always look out for that lurking “subtext”, it will get you every time.

In the same article, ‘The need for equality of suffering [?!] and of coverage’, Harris wrote of the late Tony Gregory TD:

“The President and Taoiseach were also told at his funeral that Gregory's “political hero" was Seamus Costello, founder of the INLA. According to the University of Ulster's aptly named CAIN project, the INLA was responsible for 113 deaths, including two members of An Garda Siochana and 10 of its own members. In turning up for Mr Gregory's funeral but not for Conor Cruise O'Brien's, Official Ireland seemed to reject revisionists and showed respect for republican socialists. Bad choice. Far too many starry eyes under the starry plough.”

What is wrong with those observations? Largely what was left unsaid? Costello was shot dead in 1976 by a member of the Official Republican Movement, part of the movement supported by Harris, in the form of Official Sinn Féin, later Sinn Féin the Workers Party, later The Workers Party. Why was Costello shot dead? Because he had split from Harris’s favored organisation in 1974. Gregory had also been a member of Harris’s favourite group, but got out around the same time as Costello. It was when Joe Stalin’s methods were taking over from those of Patrick Pearse within ‘Official’ circles. Harris became a master at explaining, or rather justifying, if not applying, the new politics of officialdom. Harris was getting in his retrospective retribution, but without telling his audience where his animus came from. Harris and his group thought they were very left wing in those days. They found out that that in fact they were very right wing and that is how they are today. When they started going right on Ireland, they found that the rest of the World was but a short step away.

Hence the support for Israel.

Another string to the Harris bow, a sort of Irish version of Zionism, is that Harris thinks that there is an Irish Protestant identity that is automatically British.

Here is a commentary from Church & State (First Quarter 2009) on a recent excursion by Harris at a Church of Ireland gathering in Cork. There was an all day discussion on Protestants in the War of Independence in Cork (a favourite Harris theme). The other five speakers were academic and did not support the Harris line (not even Peter Hart, who was specially invited for the purpose). It was held as part of the Church of Ireland’s Hard Gospel project, that was set up originally to help distance the C of I from association with Unionist and Orange sectarianism every year at the Church of Ireland in Drumcree, (Portadown). It was largely southern pressure that forced this step at an annual Synod. Harris tried to step backwards in Cork.

Here is part of the report:

”Harris, Hard Gospel and Hot Stuff in Co. CorkSenator Harris stated that priests should not be "dabbling" in history. They should keep their heads down, while Protestants should keep theirs up. Harris was referring to a particular "meddlesome priest", the Oxford/TCD/UCD-educated Dr Brian Murphy of Glenstal. This was an unusual, rather ominous, message for a Church of Ireland gathering, bordering almost on sectarianism. Certainly not very respectful. Historian Meda Ryan did not meet with the Harris seal of approval either. Neither did some heads-up Protestants. Fianna Fáil TD Martin Mansergh, for instance, was castigated as a "lie down and die Protestant", according to Senator Harris. A few members of the audience were seen to shift uncomfortably.

At one point in his stream of consciousness, Harris told the tale of an Aunt who embarked on a romantic interlude with an exotic creature known as a 'Protestant' (apologies if the details are hazy, possibly the finer ones have yet to be concocted) during the holding of the Eucharistic Congress in 1932. The two had arrived in a hotel bedroom and were contemplating their own type of congress when a Count John McCormack operatic rendition of a religious character came wafting up from the ground floor. For whatever reason, this had the effect of putting an end to their intended interlude. While the denouement clearly needs work, this Hard Gospel is certainly hot stuff.

Harris spoke in the afternoon without notes (or much knowledge of the historical variety). He criticised one speaker from the morning session, John Borgonovo. While the San Francisco historian was speaking, Harris was seen to fidget, talk, get up, walk to the back of the room, go to walk out, think better of it, before settling down to frown severely at the speaker. Possibly, it had all became too much for him.

Bad Borgonovo suggested that Protestants in the South wanted nothing to do with their northern sectarian unionist counterparts and proclaimed this incessantly, publicly. The report went on:

“Harris, the former republican, had the answer: the aforesaid Protestants "had a gun to their head". Really? And when did these Protestants, who spoke out on unionist sectarianism in every Irish County not under Unionist control, reveal this to Senator Harris? What is his source, apart from the windmills of his mind? Perhaps Senator Harris could tell us how many Protestants he helped persecute when he was a fully paid-up supporter of the cause, perhaps the odd poppy lady in Patrick St? Those were the days!

According to an observer, Harris, "seemed livid" and was "working up to a great frenzy". Harris reported that, when once he was in deepest, darkest, Dunmanway, he was approached by four men in a car who pulled him to the side of the road and told him to lay-off. Harris, who informed the assembly of his daughter's conversion to the Protestant cause, was having none of it. He knew how to handle such sinister people, "from experience", he said. This war, whoever it is with or against, is decidedly not over in the Senator's eyes.”

One group of (admittedly) obscure unionists think northern Protestants are the genuinely ‘lost’ tribe of Israel. At one point, due to a unionist MP espousing this sentiment, they were known in Westminster as “the lost tribe”. Eoghan Harris, a member of the Reform Movement (prop. Robin Bury, that wants Ireland back in the British Empire, sorry, Commonwealth), will probably be starting a new Protestant Crusade in the South. The last one was launched in the 1820s and was an ignominious failure, in that it lead to the first split in Irish political Protestantism (we are talking pre-Catholic Emancipation here). The opposers thought that it might be better if Protestants considered Catholics to be fellow Christians and tried to just get along with them. Curiously, one of the Protestant liberals was an ancestor of the late Conor Cruise O’Brien. That is how most southern Protestants think, but maybe things will change if latter day O’Brienites, Harris and his coterie, get going.

Harris has found logical continuity in his political peregrinations, if not logic itself (or, as Dr Spock might have said, ‘not as we know it, Jim’).

Tom Carew – Irish Friends of Israel League
Tom Carew is possibly also an epigone of Conor Cruise of Brien, but is more accurately described as one of Harris – a sort of chip off the chip off the old block. He has been indefatigable in hitting the IRA-Hamas button. He can be heard making a fool of himself on RTE here,

On the programme, when it was put to him that over 300 (at that stage) children had been killed by Israeli fire, he kept bleating, “What is your source, what is your source?” He claimed that the source of the “allegation” (we are back in Harris country here) was a “9-11 denier”. On that basis Carew could be an Israel-children-killer denier. As I think I have already observed, neat. Not very convincing, though. In the same issue of the Phoenix (16 January) that brought out the BNP’s Myers sympathies, there was a short profile of Carew. In it, it was pointed out that Carew, as well as being an official “friend” of the IDF baby killers, had been (in a previous life) a member of the ‘Peace Train’ - a sort of anti-republican group that used to picket Sinn Féin a lot. When the real peace train got going, the talks between John Hume and Gerry Adams, Carew and crew got off. Peace in Ireland, as in Israel is to be on the terms of the oppressor. The difference between Israel and the North of Ireland is that unionists do not have a right of self-determination, and so can’t exercise one, like the Israelis do. They would like to, but don’t have the same room for manoeuver.

If Carew continues like this he will, like the others here, be given his own column in the Irish or (more likely) Sunday Independent. Otherwise, he can keep on blogging on his web site, which contains nice pictures of his favourite political pin-up, Sarah Palin, and not so nice photographs and videos of his favourite soldiers, the IDF, shooting at stuff, mainly Palestinians.

Conclusion
The killing in Gaza has drawn these apologists for killing together. It has disrupted their claims to be Irish peaceniks. It's a pity so many had to die for this insight to become so plain. These right-wing ideologues are fond of saying, ‘no pain, no gain’. Those brutally slaughtered by racists who dishonour the memory of the Nazi holocaust will not have died completely in vain if these apologists for the crimes of the powerful are exposed.

Getting Israel and the BNP on side - Myers is forming alliances (CLICK to read)

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Comments (19 of 19)

investment in the arms industry must be urgently reviewed, it was claimed yesterday, after it emerged military drones used in attacks on Gaza may have been tested in Wales.
The Hermes 450 UAVs, which were also used by the Israeli army during the Lebanon conflict in 2006, were tested at Parc Aberporth, a centre of excellence for UAV development supported by £8.7m in grants from the Welsh Assembly Government.
UAV Engines Ltd (UEL), based at Lichfield, Staffordshire, has stated that it manufactures the engines for Hermes 450 UAVs (pilotless aircraft) produced by its parent company, Elbit Systems of Israel.
These aircraft have been tested at Parc Aberporth.

Hermes 450s are described by their manufacturer as the “backbone” of Israeli army and air force Istar (Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition And Reconnaissance) missions.

There are currently targeted restrictions on sales of arms and components to Israel, and export licences are turned down by the UK Government if there is a demonstrable risk that the arms may be used in situations where there is conflict or where human rights are under threat.

But a dossier of evidence compiled by Amnesty includes:

Evidence that Israeli Air Force strikes have targeted civilian homes, hospitals and shops. Amnesty has documented significant civilian casualties from such strikes.

He posted a musical video tribute to his favorite bunch of killers here:
http://safra-vesaifa.blogspot.com/2006/11/idf-tribute.html

On a more serious note this is what the warmonger contributed in justification of the Gaza slaughter (found on an offshoot from Sarah Palin's Facebook page):

"Proportionality in War by Tom Carew (Dublin , Ireland)
If the enemy is the aggressor, and you are defending your rights — especially your right to live, and live free from terror — then the aggressor has simply forfeited any right to life. The number of the aggressors it is legitimate to kill is whatever number of fatalities will permanently eliminate their threat — not just temporarily halt their current assault, but also their capability to resume their aggression at a future time of their choosing. And the more fanatical they are, the more of them it will prove unavoidable to eliminate — possibly every single one."

Seems pretty deranged to me (but a lot of right-wing politics is). Imagine an entire government filled with people who think like this, such as in Israel.

Might be better just to ignore these (f***ing) eejits (Harris,Carew, et all). I suspect their stances (yo-yo Harris's anyway) are as much to do with publicizing themselves as anything else. Why waste space on Indymedia giving them even more publicity...

I'm not sure. I think most ordinary Irish people think Harris & Myers are cranks, and I suspect many of the Sunday Independent's readers buy it for the sport and celeb gossip than Ego-han Harris' Spenglerian rants.

Most people who study them think that. But most readers do not study what they read. They just read it. The Myers/Harris efforts are a constant drip-drip without permission of equal response. They also mobilise and validate reaction. I think this is important. And of course they write to generate publicity, but not this kind.

Ranting columnists are a continuing nausea. An effective weapon must surely be satire. That was Jonathan Swift's ultimate weapon against the persistent irritation, nay canker, of his time, in early eighteenth century colonised Ireland. He wrote well argued pamphlets against swindlers and pedants, but in the end it was his satirical pieces that won him literary immortality among the underdogs of Irish society. His essay, a distillation of "savage indignation" (saeva indignatio - read the brass inscription in St. Patrick's cathedral), entitled A Modest Proposal, astounded the reading public in 1729.

Read the full text here: http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

His novel called Travels of Lemuel Gulliver satirised political and social tomfoolery and is often read in an abridged form by people who imagine it to be a children's book.

What about the human rights of living Palestinians. They don’t have too many when they are dead, gay or straight. I would have to wonder at the possible reaction of the shade of a dead Palestinian:

“I have been killed because of gay rights. I wonder then, why the Israel is not bombing Saudi Arabia. I wonder also how individual freedoms, of which gay rights are one, which are presented to us as advanced and western, are to be discussed by us under a hail of bullets and bombs, economic strangulation and unrelenting repression. Since the two main Arab parties in Israel proper, 20% of the population, have been banned from taking part in the forthcoming elections there, I wonder how we are expected to gain respect for fine sounding sentiments. We elected a Hamas government, which attempted to work through a political accommodation with Israel, and which agreed a and held a ceasefire with the great upholders of gay rights. In return Israel and its allies, the most powerful nations in the World, shunned our new government and has tried to strangle our economy. Israel broke an agreed ceasefire by killing members of Hamas, in order to create an excuse for launching a massive bombardment of our homes, infrastructure and institutions, that killed 1,300 of us in a short period of time.

We are grateful however, for the support and solidarity shown to us by people in many countries, including many Jewish people and supporters of gay rights (and gay people, thank you David Norris). Those who publicly support killing us have lost credibility and we have lost our lives. Now, to regain respectability, the supporters of Israeli killing tell the world we are not sufficiently evolved or advanced. For that we must die. We don't meet an ideal. We don't measure up. Are there echos here from the past?

Despite Israel’s attempts to reduce us to destitution in an apparent effort to drive us from the places we were driven to by Israel in 1948, we remain human beings with the capacity to learn the difference between people who kill us in the name of freedom and those who oppose the freedom Israel employs in killing us. Stop killing and blockading us and maybe we can get enough breathing space (literally) to consider the fine sounding words and phrases of our killers.”

Irish Examiner, Saturday, August 11, 2007 :
Harris is no armchair traveller
…
Eoghan Harris is no smug armchair traveller and clearly belongs in the dare-and-care category. He doesn’t just quote classical thinkers, he also lives the inspiring line of Socrates, “an unexamined life is not worth living”.
….
Harris the sparkling iconoclast — like the fabled Skibbereen Eagle of old — is now the Baltimore Bugle whose sharp scrutiny will lance the lazy, smug assumptions of political and other poltroons from Baghdad to Belfast to Ballydehob, with a youthful vigour that demolishes the ageist prejudice against sexagenarian senators...
Long may the redoubtable Harris hit the right targets, and longer may they indeed stay hit, not least the retreating ‘Rafia’ and their selectively amnesic fellow-travellers. And long may Bertie continue as an imaginative and unpredicatable leader.

Irish News 10 August 2007
Bertie Ahern’s nomination of Eoghan Harris to the senate of the Republic was as gloriously unpredictable as the man himself.

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The article above says that Harris is an "epigone" of Conor Cruise O'Brien and that Carew is Harris's, I wondered what that meant. The dictionary def says "an inferior imitator of some distinguished writer or artist of musician ". Seems to fit (don't now about the "distinguished" bit though).

'Proud Irish Rabbi' is making the same arguments as Tom Carew, not the English SAS fake, but the Irish flake. Whatever about Jews, it looks like Tom doesn't like Palestinians much. Maybe his identification with the Israeli state has little to do with Jewishness and much to do with being a reactionary. Certainly the stream on venom above appears a lot like something you would read in a right wing authoritarian publication. It is disconnected from real human beings. It is also increasingly troll-like as commentary.

What is remarkable to me is not that there should be people who view the world the way Harris, Myers, Carew & co. do, but that the media should give so much air time and so many column inches to people whose opinions are so disjointed from reference to fact. At a time when sales of newspapers are declining so steadily, I would have thought the serious newspapers ought to focus on improving the quality of factual reporting to keep up with the heavyweight factual bloggers - people like Juan Cole - and cut down on the rubbish produced by the free-range clucking opinionators. But of course there is a market for JUNK VIEWS, as there is for junk food.

Below is my reply to Carew's misinformed remarks in the Irish Times about Ahmadinejad allegedly vowing to wipe Israel off the map - based on a misquote that has long since been debunked in letters to the same paper. The fact that the Irish Times again publishes such erroneous rubbish and chooses not to publish my rebuttal demonstrates a persistent editorial bias, even to the point of bringing the profession into disrepute.

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In the debate about the war in Gaza, where so much is at stake, we must strive to establish the historical facts with certainty and clarity so that we can make fair political judgements and seek plausible solutions. And so I was dismayed to read Tom Carew’s contentious allegation (Letters, January 8th) that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly vowed to wipe Israel off the map.

This newspaper has previously acknowledged the fact that the interpretation of Ahmadinejad’s remarks as a threat to Israel is “disputed”. But since this interpretation cannot be verified by a careful translation of Mr Ahmadinejad’s words and has been repeatedly denied by other members of the government of Iran, “disputed” is too small a word for it; the allegation is unverified, erroneous and false.

In our efforts to understand what Mr Ahmadinejad is actually thinking, a clear distinction may be made between a prediction versus a threat or vow. For example, I might predict that, if the war in Gaza goes on, then many more people will be killed, both Palestinians and Israelis. I may be right, and I may be wrong, but either way my prediction cannot be interpreted as a threat or vow to kill them myself.

Returning to Mr Ahmadinejad’s remarks at the “World without Zionism” conference in Tehran in October, 2005, the Middle East Media Research Institute has published a plausible English translation on the Web.
(Iranian President at Tehran Conference, MEMRI: http://tinyurl.com/e2au3 )

Here, we see that he repeatedly refers to Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic revolution in Iran, who predicted the fall of the “corrupt regime” of the Shah, the “iron regime” of the USSR, the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein and finally the “regime that is occupying Jerusalem” – i.e. the government of Israel. In four successive paragraphs, Ahmadinejad constructs a clear parallelism between these four “regimes”, three of which have in fact been overthrown.

So he is evidently talking about regime change. But, since the Soviet Union was overthrown from within and since it was the United States that overthrew Saddam, there is no ready implication that Iran will be involved in overthrowing the Israeli “regime”.

Instead, his remarks suggest that he thinks the Palestinians will do the job, with divine assistance: “Today the Palestinian nation stands against the hegemonic system as the representative of the Islamic nation … and since their struggle has become Islamic in its attitude and orientation, we have been witnessing the progress and success of the Palestinian people.”

In February 2006, Ahmadinejad’s foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, explicitly rejected the idea of wiping Israel off the map as a misinterpretation: “Nobody can remove a country from the map,” he said, in English, after addressing the European Parliament. “He is talking about the regime. We do not recognise legally this regime.”
(Iran 'clarifies' remarks on Israel, Reuters/Al-Jazeera: http://tinyurl.com/9uafpn )

Ahmadinejad has persistently refused to confirm the original mistranslation, let alone repeat it. When CBS’s Mike Wallace put the misquote to him in an interview for 60 Minutes in August, 2006, Ahmadinejad instead called for a democratic path to durable peace: “The solution is democracy. We have said allow Palestinian people to participate in a free and fair referendum to express their views. What we are saying only serves the cause of durable peace. We want durable peace in that part of the world. A durable peace will only come about with once the views of the people are met.”
(What is left on the cutting room floor, Representative Press: http://tinyurl.com/48a3xo )

And in an interview in this newspaper last summer (Irish Times, June 28th, 2008), Dr Mehdi Safari, Iranian deputy foreign minister for Europe, also rejected the interpretation that Iran had threatened Israel, as follows: “My president did not mention that we would attack militarily or even launch somebody over there to do some acts.”
(Attack on Iran would provoke 'appropriate response', Irish Times: http://tinyurl.com/c64xzg )

Even if we cling to the contested interpretation, let us remember that Ahmadinejad is only the President of Iran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the Supreme Leader. And he has also denied any aggressive intent.

At the same time, both Ahmadinejad and Khamenei make it clear that they see Israel as a threat to which they will not submit. At the conference in October, 2005, Ahmadinejad described Israel as a bridgehead for western hegemony, and in his speech the following week, Khamanei said: “But if the power-seekers of the world … want to infringe our nation's rights, it will not tolerate oppression by anyone or any powers.”

In conclusion, Israel obviously feels threatened by Iran, but Iran also feels threatened by Israel.

It must cause Israelis great distress to hear hostile rhetoric from abroad, but Israeli leaders and the international media are partially responsible for repeating a frightening misquote.

This perpetuates an atmosphere of mutual distrust that desperately needs to be dispelled so that the nations of the Middle East can come to live in peace.

---

Please feel free to copy the above in whole or in part so as to inform politicians, journalists, diplomats, activists, etc.

Hi, Great article. Really useful to have these Irish Zionist's quotes in one place. I am genuinely worried by the fact that a far-right Christian Zionist movement seems to be developing in this country. For the first time, we had about 100 people demonstrating in favour of Israel outside the Dail - it was a few Saturdays ago.

For some like Harris it might be tick-the-boxes right-wing jargonising. Support the war in Iraq - check. Support neoliberalism - check. Support Israel - check. And pick up the cheques. Others - perhaps Carew, certainly Susan Philips are more influenced by religious considerations and are more akin to the scary US Christian Zionist movement.

I don’t believe you can draw any other conclusion from the actions of the Israeli state except that they wish to provoke terror reaction from Hamas. Given that the Zionist state was built on a mountain of lies, and its own filthy history is largely unknown by most Israeli citizens, the Zionists are continuously driven to create the ‘proof’ for their own lying claims.

For me this raises two questions:

The bankrupt terror methods of Hamas, and PLO before that, can only reinforce the Zionist myth that Israel represents the antithesis of the supposedly atavistic states and peoples that surround it.

Hamas, PLO…(all the political groupings, who find themselves opposing Israel) use these bankrupt methods of terror because the only alternative they see is the pushing of Israel to the table for negotiation, for concessions. That is the sum total of their aims.

And they have this outlook because for them (Hamas et al) the mass of the people are not an actor in the drama.
Rather, the ‘People’, whom nationalists always claim to speak for (not lead, mind you) are a passive, amorphous entity that things can only happen to. The ‘People’ are never capable of taking the initiative, combining, engaging in a struggle with the reactionaries, and for a new future.

Hamas’ ideology is the other side of the same coin of the Zionists’ claim.
Hamas say ‘No! Our people are good people. They are not savages!’

Both Hamas and Israel fear the masses mobilized. They fear above all politics!

You cannot understand what is happening in the Middle East (for want of a better term) without studying the history of Zionism, Arab Nationalism, Nazism, counter-revolutionary Stalinism, American Imperialism,…..

All these issues must be studied closely (and they have been). An understanding of the war crimes in Gaza does not end in revealing what the IDF did - that is only the start of an understanding, not the end. You cannot defeat Zionism without knowing what it is. You cannot know what it is without knowing it’s interconnected and changing history.

So, for me this raises the second question. If nationalist (superficial) approaches to the struggle do not work (and they have not) then what is the struggle?
Is it enough to condemn Israeli atrocities? I put this question most seriously. Not as a petty attempt to score points.
How is the struggle to be led.? What are the political programs to follow?

The butchery of the IDF is, I believe, only a taste of what Imperialist and capitalist powers have on offer for all of us, as the economic crisis unfolds.

I am not criticising the sentiment behind those letters,but those Jews that criticised Israel are not even active Jews as in the are ancestorally Jewish but don't activelly partake in the Religion.Secualr Jews is the correct term.

Irish Jews are critical of Israel.But ninety per cent agree Israel should exist and defend itself when needs be.But not nessecarily with such agression.I think some people will always criticise Israel.

Others would be more supportive if Israel had dealt with the rockets more humanely.

I hate death buy assasination would be better.Taking out the top officalls.Who smuggle the rockets.Or forving Egypt to patrol these tunnels.

Its not the tunnels thats the problem its the murderous nature of the Israeli regime that is the problem. Its the inability of the UN to Target the War criminals effectively and get them out of their armoured security rooms and into the dock as soon as possible. These are the problems facing us , including "the Irish Jews" we all now need an effective international justice system to tackle the obscenities being perpetrated by people like Livni, Barak and Olmert and their bloodthirsty generals. They neeed to know that it is not safe for them to leave Israel, Ever.
Spain has taken steps in bringing this about : " According to a legal source in Madrid, Justice Fernando Andeo decided to grant the Palestinian petition "in the name of universal justice." "

Meanwhile Israel still proudly trumpets its army of brainwashed immigrant tools who they are training to whitewash the recent massacres with a thick coat of lies and propaganda. There are plenty of them operating on this board I feel as I read some of the production line pap being posted. It says something about a country when it needs to twist the arms of a bunch of foreigners to conceal the nature of the governing regime. Imagine Fianna Fail indoctrinating a load of enthusiastic Polish goons to flood the net with rubbish about how Bertie really came to have a bag of cash under his bed. Pretty sad stuff.

" Noam Katz, director of the Foreign Ministry's PR department, said, "We are in the process of thinking how to utilize these volunteers not only during conflict, but also during regular times as well." "

Christopher Hitchens can be heard here making a Racist Comment on BBC Radio 4 on the "Any Answers" Program on Saturday 17 January 2009 which was recorded in Washington USA.No apology for his behavior was made by either the BBC ,Jonathan Dimbleby or Christopher Hitchens.

This is the commentary that came with the recording.

"Jonathan Dimbleby hosts from The George Washington University in Washington, DC. The panel includes Christopher Hitchens, Renee Amoore, Thomas E Mann and Colonel Larry Wilkerson."

Stupid!? The Irish Setter is good natured, intelligent and very affectionate, as well as excellent around children and not aggressive towards other dogs. But like the Hitch, the Irish Setter tends to bloat if too well fed and needs to be brushed daily to prevent the hair from developing mats or tangles. Info from PetYourDog.com

On January 17, Christopher Hitchens took part in a special edition of the BBC Radio 4 programme Any Questions hosted by Jonathan Dimbleby The George Washington University in Washington, DC. The show went very well for Hitch, who managed to get in some interesting points about Israel, Palestine and Iran and also to make (as usual) a complete pratt of himself over (you guessed it) the Clintons.

Then, just when he ought to have been finishing on a song, he decided instead to tell an Irish joke, and not just any old Irish joke, but the kind that relies for its effect on the listeners' understanding that the Irish, as a race, are intellectually challenged and over-sensitive.

BETH BREEDING: On to one of the more pressing issues what kind of dog do you hope the Obama family brings to the White House?

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: What kind of dog do you hope the Obama family brings to the White House? You must have very strong views about this I am quite certain Colonel

COLONEL LARRY WILKERSON: A chocolate lab so I can borrow it occasionally.

DIMBLEBY: Tom Mann

THOMAS E MANN: If the ugly truth be known I dont care.

DIMBLEBY: Reneé

RENEÉ AMOORE: I want a pit bull.

DIMBLEBY: And Christopher Hitchens

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: There is a very old saying in Washington. A piece of local wisdom. If you want a friend in Washington get a dog. That would mean I would say an Irish setter.

DIMBLEBY: Because?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Stupid, highly strung, but dead loyal. (LAUGH)

This incidence of schoolboy racist humor was picked up by Jack Grantham, who put together the YouTube clip above with some very familiar images and brought the offense to our attention. I must say it amazes me that the BBC can allow this sort of thing to pass with giggles of approval and no apologies by anyone involved, while at the same time they can't even bring themselves to carry an appeal for humanitarian aid for the Palestinian refugees in Gaza. More than this, the entire episode seems to have been scripted rather than spontaneous, as is often the case with radio broadcasts. If this is the case, it means that the scriptwriter, director, presenter, questioner and associated staff, as well as the Drink-Soaked One himself, were all perfectly happy to make a lame racist joke for the express purpose of rounding off a light-hearted radio show. What next for Hitch and the Beeb, one wonders? Jokes about cotton fields? Concentration camps? Dwellers of the jungles or deserts? Aids sufferers? The malnourished and starving? The visually, physically, mentally and chromosomally handicapped? People with slitty eyes? Or are the Irish now to be singled out for special treatment?

Hitch is a hopeless case, and If I may venture to guess at his response to being called on this, it would probably be somewhere along the lines of "Don't be such a Lesbian!" But we should demand higher standards of the BBC. Agreed?

The BNP fascists associated themselves with Myers. Look at the Phoenix magazine article above, that quotes BNP members who think Myers’s views are the same as theirs. Are they wrong in their interpretation of what they see from Myers reproduced on the BNP's website? Have the BNP fascists mistakenly put anti-fascist ramblings from Myers on their website? This seems unlikely.